Psalms 1
March 31, 2010
I’m sensing a call to a deepening understanding of the plight of humanity in general, and the plight of the faithful worshiper of God. I will proceed by looking at those aspects of life by looking at the Psalms. My object is not an exegetical approach but simply to discern from the Psalms, these poems, spiritual songs, hymns, and outcries, what the human plight is in general and how the worshipers of God negotiate this plight.
Psalm 1: Blessed is the man.
Behind this pronouncement of the teachers of Torah stands the desire to live a pleasing life before God, who is seen as good and rewarder of those who seek, fear, and love him. Those who worship God are not capable of entertaining the thought of God’s existence without positing his goodness. Atheism or foolishness (the fool says there is no God) are not able to reconcile the evident brokenness of humanity with the claims of a large percentage of humanity of the existence of a good God. God-believers can and do, laying the blame of the broken lives at the foot of sin and the human desire to be gods ourselves.
There is a built in desire in the heart of humanity to please God by obeying God. There is also a built in disruption to this desire. So the plight of human beings is to please while at the same time the pull toward foolish living is strong.
The anchors that make a difference between the two pulling poles for those bent on God are: godly instruction, and community living. Every tribe, nation, group of people adheres to some rules of life to govern relationship with others and with the deity. Without these two realities chaos will dominate life on earth.
It is now a proven fact (with thousands of years of history to show for it) that those who live by the law of the Lord receive the blessing that this obedience gives. Those who don’t receive the curse that disobedience gives if not immediately, then ultimately. There are exceptions of course. But they don’t defy the rule. God is good and rewards those who seek him. This is the only way out of human evil and brokenness.
Prayer: Dear God who blesses, I am aware of brokenness all around me and in me. In my plight to live at peace with myself, others and you, I need your instruction and your guidance. Thank you that you have left me with an abundance of guidance in the Psalms. Help me to be faithful to read and to eat to my heart’s content of your guiding words. Amen.
Rule of Benedict 47
March 30, 2010
Chapter 7:23-30 continues on the theme of humility.
And in regard to the desires of the flesh, we must believe that God is always present to us, as the prophet says to the Lord: O lord, all my desire is before (Ps 38:10). Let us be on our guard then against evil desires, since death has its seat close to the entrance of delight; thus the Scripture commands us saying: Do not go after your desires (Sir 18:30 Here Benedict is quoting from the Apocrypha believing it is Scripture, not a belief held by Christians of all traditions). Since, therefore, the eyes of the Lord behold good and evil (Prov 15:3); and the lord is ever looking down from heaven upon the children of humans, to see who has understanding or is seeking God (Ps 14:2); and since the works of our hands are reported to God, our Maker and Creator, night and day by the angels appointed to watch over us; we must be always on the watch, brothers, lest, as the prophet says in the psalm, God should see us at any time fall into evil and become unprofitable (Ps 14:3); and lest, though God spare us now because he is merciful and expects our conversion, God should say to us hereafter: THese things you did and I remained silent (Psalm 49:21).
Comment: If our lives are open books before the Lord our God, why are we so bold as to sin? The desire for forbidden delight seems to trump even the all seeing eyes of the Lord. Benedict’s warning to be diligent against evil desires because of the death they bring. Of course not all desire is evil. But given free rein to our desires will land us in hot water. In order to deal with these desires we must place along side of them the greater to live in the fear of the Lord (to live the love likfe with God). It is not enough to destroy evil. We must fill the vacuum with good.
Prayer: Dear God, we affirm that you are good. In your goodness, even when our desires are bent toward evil, show us the way of escape that we may be able to endure and overcome. Amen! Christ, have mercy!
Rule of Benedict 46
March 29, 2010
7:14-22 continue the discussion on humility, the subject of the whole chapter.
This the prophet tells us, when he shows how God is ever present to our thoughts, saying God searches the heart and the mind (Ps 7:10). And again: The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are empty (Ps 94:11). And God also says: You have understood my thoughts from afar (Ps 139:3); and the though of man shall confess to you (Ps 76:11). In order, therefore, that he may be on his guard against evil thoughts, let the humbler brother always say in his heart: Then shall I be without stain before God, if I have kept myself from my sin (Ps 18:24).
We are indeed, forbidden to do our own wil by Scripture, which says to us: Turn away from you own will (Sir 18:30 Here Benedict is quoting from the Apocrypha believing it is Scripture, not a belief held by Christians of all tribes). And so too beg of God in prayer that God’s will may be done in us. Rightly there fore are we taught not to do our own will, if we listen to the warning of Scripture: THere are ways which to people seem right, but the results of them lead to the depths of hell (Prov 16:25); or again, when we tremble at what is said of the careless: They are corrupt and have become abominable in their pleasures (Ps 14:1).
Wow! Here, Benedict does not leave any room for compromise on the will of God. What God says and what God does is his will. What I say and what I do is my will. Our behavior determines what will dominates our lives. If God’s actions are our actions, humility governs them. If our will governs our actions, pride is knocking at the door and humility flees.
Doing what is right in our own eyes is a huge issue in Christendom today. Doing what is right in my neighbor’s eyes is just as huge. We get our cues from others or from ourselves. Not often do I still hear of brothers and sisters waiting on the Lord to follow his will.
Has pride, self-confidence replaced humility and dependence on the Lord? Thinking a little about how decisions are made in your own life, in your own church, does Benedict, yea indeed does Scripture have cause for concern?
Prayer: O God, forgive me when I followed my own will knowing perfectly well that yours is being shafted. Lord, have mercy. Amen
C.S. Lewis
March 28, 2010
March 28 reading in A Year with C.S Lewis
Title: Point of Contact
We must not hink Prise is something God forbids because he is offended at it, or that Humility is something he demands as due to His own dignity–as if God himself was proud. He is He isn’t in the least worried about His dignity. HTe point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble–delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless an unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, fancy-dress in which we have all go ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are. I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself: If I had, I could probably tell you more about the relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy-dress off–getting rid of the false self, with all its ‘look at me’ and ‘Aren’t I a good boy?’ and all it posing and posturing. To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert. From Mere Christianity
Rule of Benedict 45
March 28, 2010
Benedict continues dealing with humility in verses 9-13 of Chapter 7 of his rule. Previously he spoke of Jacob’s ladder. He continues on the same theme.
The sides of the same ladder we understand to be our body and soul, in which the call of God has placed various steps of humility or discipline, which we must ascend. The first step of humility, then, is that a person always keeps the fear of God before his eyes (Ps 36:2), avoiding forgetfulness: that he is ever mindful of all that God has commanded; that those who despise God will be consumed in hell for their sins; and that he always considers that life everlasting is prepared for those who fear God. And keeping himself at all times from sin and vice, whether of thoughts, tongue, eyes, hands, feet, or his own will, let him thus hasten to cast away the desires of the flesh. Let him consider that he is always beheld from heaven by God, and that his actions are everywhere seen by the eye of the Divine Majesty, and are every hour reported to God by the angels.
Two thoughts: one, humility is not a passive stance. We can do something to humble ourselves before almighty God by living in awe of God, not forgetting his ways, not giving free will to our sinful nature. Two, that our lives are open books, lived in the presence of God. We can hide nothing, not with figs, not with twigs, not with brick or mortar, not with denial. The Divine Majesty pays attention to our lives. We give account. We live in the company of angels, open to the cosmos to see. What we do in the dark, is revealed in the light. Not for condemnation but for mercy.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. I desire to climb this ladder of humility but with God’s enabling. The upward mobility that I seek is from an external show of humility to the internal height of self-denial, and holy self-love. I desire to live by the fear of the Lord as guide and I desire to live in obedience so that the crown of righteousness I receive from your hand can be placed at your feet: “Lord you showed mercy. I give back to you the gift of humility.”
Lord Jesus, have mercy. Amen.
Losing Lustful Passions
March 24, 2010
Pornography is the most lucrative business on the Internet. The vendors of lust are raking in the dough by the truck full by capitalizing on human brokenness. A close second in popularity on the Internet, not for lucrative purposes, is religion. Ironic? Enigmatic?
Sexuality and spirituality are no strangers. They have been bedfellows (pardon the pun) for a long time. The relationship between the two is entrenched in the Old Testament: Ashtoreth and Baal reigned as king and queen of lustful behavior in pagan religions.
In this article, I will not give techniques to avoid lusting. Techniques may work periodically but unless change happens deep within, techniques lack staying power. What sticks when it comes to dealing with lust? I am convinced that the solution is found in understanding and living a theology of human relationships.
The problem with lust is basically a problem of relationships. It is a problem of using others for the purpose of self-gratification rather than adding value to their lives. We must realize that at the core of lust is a deep disfigurement of life with God in his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
We need a helpful theology of human relationships that overcomes death by lust. We must no longer take for granted that we know how to love others as we love ourselves, and God with all our being. Without a godly vision of others, it is easy to default to our selfish human natures and mar all we use.
What then does a theology of human relationships include? How does such a theology help us deal with unbridled human sexual passions?
We get our theology of human relationships from the way God relates to his people. God relates to humanity in such a way as to add value and dignity to them. It is never God’s intention to rob us of our dignity or cause us to lose our own dignity in relationships.
First, God relates to us with unbounded love. His love knows no limits. It is not exclusive. It is not bound by a return on investment. His love is sacrificial for the purpose of adding value and dignity to his creation. His love is redeeming and edifying. The deep change that needs to take place in the lustful heart is seeing others (friend or stranger alike) as bearers of the image of God worthy of a love that is pure and holy. There is nothing like unconditional love to elevate our respect and honor of others. This is the love that God gives us. This is the love we must not quench by lust. Lust chips away at the image of God in us and in others. It disfigures as it turns loving beings into objects. It hammers in us the nails of selfishness and self-gratification at the expense of the dignity of others. Loving others who are made in the image of God is the first claw that pulls away at the rusty nails of lust.
Second, God relates to us with grace. He favors us and enables us to do what we cannot do in our own strength. His favor is unearned. His grace is empowering in our weakness. Likewise in learning to put to death the deadly sin of lust, we must treat others (all image bearers) with favor and with enablement. The lustful heart treats others without dignity. It contributes nothing to others. It only has human weakness for ally. In order for transformation to take place, a deep renewing of the mind must take place in confession, brokenness, and repentance, within the confines and with the help of a mature community of believers. Flannery O’Connor said, in the Habit of Being, “all human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and grace is painful.”
Third, God relates to us intimately. A holy intimacy! God has gone out of his way to reveal who he is. He has done so in nature, through chosen leaders, prophets, priests, kings, a people, and finally Jesus and his church. In counseling with others about lusting I have come to understand that there is a deep yearning for intimacy with men and women who are hooked on lust. The search for gratifying human lust is a deceptive mask. It masks a deep hunger and thirst for intimacy with God gone awry. I have seen those afflicted by lust reform their ways and work at reshaping their hearts and minds when they finally realized that they are looking for intimacy with God in the wrong ways and in the wrong places. When a person is hooked on a lustful lifestyle we must look closely at their spiritual lives in order to discover their longing for intimacy with God. And with the discovery rebuild their intimacy with God through a spiritual formation process.
Unconditional love, grace that favors and empowers, and intimacy are the components of a theology of human relationships. This is God’s way of relating to us. It must be the way we relate to others. But this kind of relating is learned when it is taught, and modeled by godly leaders and friends who are willing to invest in others. Those who walk with the Master must not walk the narrow path alone. They must walk with others in holiness and purity learning and teaching the taming of the shrew of lust.
Lament
March 7, 2010
It is a sobering thing for leaders in worship to realize that they stand Sunday after Sunday before people who are broken by life and choices they or others have made. It is a sobering thing that in the face of this brokenness expectations are high and slanted toward joyful and celebrative worship. The other side of life, the one played in a minor key, does not get much play.
The lack of public lament when the church gathers for worship is unfortunate and leaves worshipers miring in their own dust and ashes. Doing life in the happy major keys of life always is unreal. Without the minor keys of lament, our worship is not complete.
Having reflected a bit on this subject, and coming from a culture that laments publicly without hesitation, I have discovered that lament is a natural response of the broken hearted in search of answers to life’s dilemmas. Often our response to personal tragedies takes the form of questions. Questioning is heaven’s gift to us. God has given a redeeming means of handling our brokenness with the sacred duty of questioning. Many of our brothers and sisters in the faith questioned as a form of lamenting their lot and the lot of the people of God: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” “Bless God and die!” etc…
David Dark wrote in the Sacredness of Questioning Everything that “deliverance begins with questions. It begins with people who love questions, people who live with questions and by questions, people who feel a deep joy when good questions are asked.” Allowing spoken and unspoken questions of lament encourages the community of faith to experience sacredness in the possibility of redeeming answers (I am with you always, not here’s why you suffer). Our worship experiences do not ordinarily allow for times of reflection, which in turn allow questions to surface to the top of our consciousness and thus for lament to be expressed.
Lamenting as a corporate response of worship allows us to question and by doing so discover where God is at work, and where he is leading us as his people. In personal lament I have discovered redemption and healing. Often the biblical writers tied the act of fasting to lamenting (a la Job). Fasting is a response to a sacred moment, a sorrow, an encounter with God, that demands our submission and releases us from self-pity and confusion in lament.
Looking forward to your thoughts on how worship leaders and worshipers can do lament tastefully occasionally when they gather to worship. Any thoughts?
Lust
March 2, 2010
The Slippery Slope of Untamed Passions
Lust is in vogue. Exposure to the sexual avalanche of the media has legalized and legitimized lust for many. Can you buy a car, chew gum, shampoo your hair, and drink a diet Coke, without first having to endure the avalanche of lust? Can you whiten your teeth or Listerine your mouth without anticipating a sexual encounter? Is this how Freud and Darwin would have us be?
The old order: first comes love (pure and noble) then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage. The new order: first comes lust, then comes porn, then comes sex, then comes living together (and oh, marriage is optional either before or after children are born)!
How did we get here? What do we do about it, as the church, the love guardians we are called to be in God’s Kingdom? No, playing ostrich is not a good game plan for concerned followers of the Pure One. Laissez faire or que sera sera attitudes do not honor the prophetic traditions we inherited from our forefathers in the faith from the Old Testament on. Tolerance (usually meaning forced acceptance and inclusion without reserve) of society’s sexual mores should not be a fait accompli in the church.
The church has a mandate from Christ himself to lovingly enfold the worst offenders of lust into the true fold of love in Christ. Did not Jesus himself model for us the power of pure love toward purveyors of lust as we might call the woman caught in adultery? Drop that stone! Eliminating lust was not on top of the agenda for Jesus. That besmirched distinction goes to pride, greed, and hypocrisy, the deadliest of the sins. In Matthew 21:30 we are told that the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before the Pharisees!
What then is lust? Why is it bad? What to do about it?
The people of God then and now have long recognized that misplaced sexual urges wreak havoc in the church and in society.
The sons of the gods (whatever these creature are) of Genesis 6 were full of lust. A woman in my Bible study called them “h…y little angels,” which caused much laughter. The result of their lust was the taking of as many of the daughters of men as they pleased. Unbridled lust! The slippery slope of their untamed passions, of doing what was right in their own eyes, brought the destruction of the world.
A lustful woman then plagued Joseph. She kept pestering him to give in to her lust and to unbridled natural sexual urges until his refusal landed him in jail. But God was with Joseph. Jail is better than lust for the man who is determined to walk with God.
Then comes David. O David, what an enigma you are? You lust, you contrive wicked plans, and you cause cold-blooded death. Yet your legacy of brokenness over your lust, multiplied a thousand times, earns you the tile of a man after God’s own heart! Of course it would have been better all around had you not lingered with your gaze upon the naked bather.
And your son Ammon, what legacy did you leave this chip off the old block? The old old block, Judah! How Judah used his daughter in law, Tamar, when he lusted, so did Ammon, his descendant through David, did to his own sister, also named Tamar, when he lusted for her (Study Genesis 38 and 2 Samuel 13-14). The sins of the fathers have a dogged destructive tenacity to them. Don’t they? But thanks be to God who will deliver by his grace.
Then there is our Pure Lord who saw lust as leading into the garbage heap that is Gehenna (Matthew 5:27-30). An enigmatic passage to be sure! It is better to live maimed from body parts than to burn in hell? These are the only words of Jesus about having a healthy sexuality!
There is a story behind Jesus’ strong warning. Follow along. Israel often lusted after Baal, the pagans’ god of fertility. For a century, the force of Baal grabbed their imagination under the rules of Ahaz and Manasseh, his grandson. They sexualized their worship by sleeping with temple prostitutes. They sacrificed their children as the pagans did by burning their bodies in the trash heaps of Jerusalem, called the Valley of Ben Hinnom, which later was called Gehenna, the word Jesus uses for hell in Matthew 5:30). When Babylon conquered Israel, shed their blood, they threw their bodies in the Valley of Ben Hinnom (the Valley of Slaughter) the same garbage dump where they previously sacrificed their children. They took the king’s child and slaughtered him before his eyes in this hell pit.
So Gehenna for Jesus was the place where bodies burned and waste smoldered when God’s people luge down the slippery slope of lust. This brings clarity to Jesus’ warning about our sexual lives (for background study see 2 kings 16:10-18; 21:4-9; Jeremiah 7:29-33; 19; 32; 2 Kings 23; 2 Chronicles 28; 33).
Jesus warns that there are real consequences to lust. He peels off a scab from Israel’s past to illustrate them. Jesus was saying that when we lust, “we are throwing our whole lives into a valley of burning waste—a place of death and idolatry and rejectedness and smoldering trash” (Jeff Cook in the book Seven).
How many of our comrades in the faith have eaten the poisoned meat of lust rather than starve their sexual urges and drink from their own cisterns? They deserve our mercy. They need our grace for there we might also go lest we bridle our legitimate God-given sexual desires. Those who desire to walk with the Master are diligent in their watchful tenacity for the sin that crouches at the door. Next, some ways of dealing with lust will be explored.
Dealing with Gluttony
March 2, 2010
Recently, I wrote about gluttony, that sin that crouches at the door of our disordered appetite to disrupt our intimacy with God. Gluttony is turning food and drink into idols. When food becomes an obsession, time to alter our relationship with it.
How then do we overcome gluttony?
As with any sin, awareness, confession, and repentance are a start. Then comes the hard work of heart transformation, and adding new habits. My role today is not to play Holy Spirit. I only seek to share what I have found helpful in the struggle against the conspicuous drive to over indulge in good food. A little time alone with God and a little time facing our gluttony will go a long way to get us on track to using food and drink in a God-glorifying way as God intends.
Down to brass tacks. Personally, as one beggar teaching other beggars where to find bread, I have found the following ideas and two behaviors helpful of late.
The idea first: We are embodied selves. By saying this, I am affirming something quite obvious. We know we are body and we know we are soul (spirit, mind). When I scrape the ice off my windshield I experience that activity as a body with a souI. When I’m dreaming I experience my dream as a soul with a body. The deep connection between body and soul is real. The bottom line here for gluttony is that how I relate to food affects my soul, and how I take care of my soul affects my body. If you find this idea hard to swallow for now, never mind. Skip it. But notice how the way we feel affects the way we eat (as in times of grief or tragedy).
The second idea: fasting is primarily a response to a sacred moment that God brings to our attention. A crisis, tragedy, and sin, for example, are apt occasions for us to respond by not eating (It is always so in Scripture that fasting is a response). However, a side benefit of periodic fasting (that is, not the reason why we fast) is the awareness that God can meet our physical needs even in the absence of food. Jesus told his disciples at the well that he has food from above that the disciples knew not of, which sustained him. Gluttony is a sin and fasting is the right response that may awaken us that our disordered attachment to food can be broken.
First Behavioral change: My colleague, David Manner, serendipitously gave me the best advice I have received on overcoming gluttony. We were eating one day at Olive Garden. As usual, I ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce (Is spaghetti not the fruit that is always in season on the tree of life flanking the flowing river in Revelation 22:2?). When my relished pasta graced the place mat in front of me, I noticed a few lonely strings meandering in all directions on the bottom of the shiny porcelain plate. A few drops of tomato sauce barely stained a few of the strings. David must have noticed my dismay at the paucity of the fare. With his quick wit, he sought to alleviate my insulted ego saying: “Maybe they brought you what you need, not what you want, Georges.” Ouch! Of course, it’s not easy to know when David is joking or sparring. No matter! Holy Spirit is not partial to niceties when he needs to get a truth across. Of course, that it came from Mr. Fitness himself was not wasted on me either!
I am taking David’s words to heart. They have become mantra to my eating habits. Eat what you need, not what you want. It seems that I always want to eat more than I should but this episode is a constant reminder in my choices of servings when I eat. Thanks David. You meant it for good and it is doing good.
Second behavioral change: I have found it helpful to minimize the number of times I eat alone. There are times when we have to eat by ourselves. Some of us may live alone. But whenever possible we should eat in company. I have discovered that eating alone dampens my gluttony sensors while heightening the feelings of loneliness. Eating is meant to be a social activity, a grateful experience of the bountiful blessings of God. Eating alone is counterintuitive to human nature. Why even the first sinners ate together! Eating with others like family, friends, and colleagues, has a way of promoting a wholesome relationship to food. When eating with others, the relationship takes the primary focus and the food the secondary.
Our body, just as much as our spirit, are a stewardship to the Lord. We are embodied spirit. Separating the two is a mistake that can easily lead to a gluttonous life style while seemingly maintaining a robust faith. Those who walk with the Master are concerned for the bodies as much as for their souls.
Gluttony
March 2, 2010
I have been writing about the seven deadly thoughts or sins. So far I have written about pride and humility, envy and contentment, and sloth and seeking God with fervor. These are deadly because they tend to destroy our moral fiber. They deaden our sensitivity to love God and love others. They breed forms of behavior that ought not to be found among us as followers of Christ. These sins are indicators of a character and of core beliefs that are disordered. Today, I want to say a few things about gluttony.
One pastor who preached about the deadly sins some time back, wrote to encourage and thank me for addressing them. May I encourage you to do like wise and play the role of the prophet in your circles of influence about these deadly sins that ruin us and make our witness dead on arrival.
Sin is alienation from God or missing the mark of the high standard of God’s holiness. We are also familiar with sin as bad behavior: “We don’t smoke, we don’t chew, and we don’t go with girls that do”. But does gluttony (our sin du jour) and its sisters get enough coverage in our preaching and teaching? Gluttony is an “acceptable or tolerated sin” by many. When any sin crouches at the door of our heart we compromise our witness to the world.
What does the Bible say about gluttony?
Gluttony is no new sin. The ancient wise people of God knew it and warned against it. In Proverbs 23:20-21 they forbid joining in on those who abuse food and drink. They also knew that gluttony might lead to poverty and drowsiness (a laziness that prevents initiative). Keeping the company of gluttons besmirches the family name.
Paul warns Titus and the church he lead about the teachings of the people of Crete in Titus 1:12. He knew that even one of the Cretans’ own prophets accused them of always lying, being evil brutes, and gluttons.
Jesus is wrongly accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. But he was neither. “Wisdom is proved right by her actions” or as Luke has it “by her children” (Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34). Jesus was full of wisdom and truth. Being accused and being guilty is not the same thing. Eating with tax collectors and sinners does not a glutton make. Contrary to popular belief, then, gluttony is not a good thing, even when we euphemize it with words such as these: he’s a big eater, she has a great appetite, or I love chocolate so much).
What then is gluttony? William Stafford (Disordered Loves) describes gluttony as a reversal of creation, the spoiling and corruption of food and all that goes with it. “Gluttony,” he says, “is eating and drinking that excludes God.” It is a spiritual disease that feeds “on our need for food and drink and for the other necessities of bodily life.” Food enjoyed as a gift from God is good. But our love of food can become inordinate or disordered and thus evil. Evil, says C.S. Lewis, is a good that has is sought in some disordered or wrong ways. Abusing food to assuage our emotions or spiritual hungers is a dead in the water idea.
Few of us will escape the tentacles of this pervasive deadly sin in our lives. Many of us are crying the 10 extra pound blues in January for the indulgences of November and December. I will spare you the parade of numbers that prove we eat and drink too much while others go to bed hungry since we all know them too well. We all know that as a society we gorge ourselves sumptuously while others get crumbs from our tables to fill their shrunken stomachs and bulging abdomens. But just because we can do something for crumbs gleaners does not mean we automatically cease to be gluttonous.
My deepest concern here is that gluttony is a strong contributor to our natural rebellion against God. Our inordinate love of food can easily become an idol and an idol is a false way to get closer to God. We take a God-given mixture of air, sun, water, wheat, flour, yeast, and heat and manufacture bread that we then abuse in gluttony.
Gluttony is a way of fabricating a personal identity based on food. You have heard, no doubt, the old adage: “we are what we eat”. There is truth here. Our children grow up with comfort foods because food shapes their social identity. How and what we eat are tied intricately with who we are. No doubt the amount of food we consume affects the way we look, and feel, and think, and relate. There is also a spiritual aspect to our eating as is evident from the talk of eating at the temple in the Old and New Testaments. Eating forms our identities in ways that are not completely understood yet. Are you a fan of Emeril et al?
For this reason gluttony, says Stafford, “is part of the old conspiracy to fabricate one’s own identity by eating and drinking, to create and sustain oneself by turning the miracle of food and drink into self-creation and self-service, excluding God.” This is sin and it leads to death in every way (physical and spiritual).
Those who walk with the Master refuse to succumb to any sin that moves us away from God. Rather, we want to do all we can to overcome our sin, gluttony included. Next article will deal with overcoming gluttony.
Sloth’s Solutions
March 1, 2010
Sloth’s Solutions
I have been writing a series of articles that have to do with many of the major wrong thought patterns that lead to wrong or evil actions. Historically, the Church called these the seven deadly sins. They are deadly because they tend to destroy our character. These patterns have been given the names of pride, envy, greed, wrath, lust, sloth, and gluttony. In previous articles I dealt with pride and envy and their counterparts humility and contentment. Today I respond with the solution to sloth, which I wrote about in last month’s article. You can access all of these at www.baptistdigest.com/archive/article.
The solution I present to sloth (indifference toward our souls, toward God) is to become the kind of person who routinely hungers and thirsts after righteousness. We live in a world that is broken but has been put on a path of restoration by King Jesus. By hungering and thirsting for personal righteousness we cultivate the life in the kingdom of God among us. Hungering and thirsting after putting the world to rights is a good place to start. But first, here’s what I am not advocating.
I am not advocating here a busy life of doing more activities, or taking on more responsibilities in the church. Busyness will not work to overcome indifference to hungering for God. In fact, busyness is counterproductive. You’ve heard well meaning people state: “I want to burn out, not rust out.” Well now, are burn and rust the only options?
Doing more of the same to overcome sloth is madness when doing too much probably landed us in the lap of sloth in the first place. Do you share the angst in this testimony? “My mind is full and my hands are busy, but my heart is empty and emotionally distant from God. Life moves so fast that God has become a blur.” Perhaps this connects with you? “I have been doing ministry on a virtually empty tank, masking my immaturity and or/inferiority by doing great things for the kingdom of God. I find myself on the west bank of the Jordan unable to cross over to the Promised Land.”
A performance driven life will not get us at wrestling with sloth. A friend and fellow pilgrim on the Way testifies: “My journey with Christ until now has been based on performance. I know that Jesus saved me, and I say all the right things at church, just like everyone else, but I really don’t know Him well. It frustrates me but I keep up with the show.” We worked out a way for him to move from faking it to grace as way of life, of panting for God.
Well, if we would conquer sloth, it won’t be by busyness or performance. We’re not going to conquer sloth by consuming our way into righteousness either. Buy this program, get this book, attend this conference, or speed up your technology. The turbo boost does not sell on Wall Street.
What will work, then? Here I share personal experience that has proven helpful to me in resolving my bouts of indifference to life that is truly life in God.
I make it my daily business to know God. A while back I took the challenge of D.A. Carson seriously when he said: “The greatest need in the church today is for Christians to come to know God.” Not just to know about God, but to experience God in relationship. Practically, I take time to delight or to enthrall my mind with God. “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart”, says the psalmist (37:4). I bring my mind to dwell on the beauty of God in his creation (from nature to babies to a beautiful veggie burger!). I place the object of my love before my mind (Thomas Aquinas). Emily Dickinson got it: “the soul selects her own society, then shuts the door.” Spot on! When God becomes the company we keep, we are in the presence of creation’s creator.
We enthrall our minds with God when we set our minds on things above: from the heaving of the seas to the flight of the bumblebees, from a baby’s first smile to his first step to her first word to his first love. Epictetus says that there is no end to enthralling our minds with God; “Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a providence to a modest and grateful mind.” Do this daily and you will be well on your way to conquering sloth.
I also make it my daily business to overcome sloth by listening to the past. God created and loved a people for his own pleasure (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). He loved us to the point he became one of us, to serve us, to suffer and die for us, to leave the Holy Spirit, to come back again, to restore his world to its original design. There is a life of enthrallment here. Listen to the past and present and future.
Finally, I make it my daily business to reflect on my experience of him and that of others around me. A word that is said in kindness becomes the voice of God. A gesture on my part that strangely warms another’s heart. A nagging problem or doubt lift. Love overwhelms. A disease that kills. A God-message in a song. A bird’s chirp. The world is alive with God.
Sloth can only be overcome by an intentional process of living for God. Those who walk with the Master just do it.
Learning to Run on Empty
March 1, 2010
Learning to Run on Empty
Last month I wrote about pride and asked myself “why am I at times like this?” This month, I want to offer a cure: The Antidote to pride is humility, or poverty of spirit. Other biblical words are also synonymous with humility: meekness, submissiveness, and lowliness. A song in the 70s speaks about running on empty. Empty of a false self is a good way of describing humility. So is this you? Is it becoming you? Is humility the condition of my soul?
Monica Baldwin: “What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God.”
Declared by Einstein as the greatest scientific mind, Sir Isaac Newton said: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.”
Saint Augustine
Aspiring to a humble life is worthy of all the effort we can put into it. Ask the world and it will tell you in so many ways the humble get nowhere. Make your mark on the world, step over anyone in your path, and get to the top at all cost. And when you do… Few are they out there in “Egypt Land,” who say: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Perhaps we shouldn’t expect it when even in “Beulah Land” humility is easily forgotten.
In the church… our mandate is humility. In our life manual our best models and highest instructions are humble people and lowliness. Numbers 12:3 says “Moses was very humble.” Honor, wisdom, grace, fairness, honoring others, greatness, victory, and other attributes worthy of Christ’s kingdom citizens come fast upon the heels of poverty of spirit (peruse these Scriptures and follow references: Proverbs 15:33; Colossians 3:12 1 Peter 5:5; Philippians 2:3; 2 Chronicles 12:6, 30:11; Matthew 18:4; James 4:10; Micah 6:8; Zechariah 9:9). False humility is possible (is it ever; I know it by personal acquaintance, see Colossians 2:23).
The humble in spirit don’t need to worry about the wrong thoughts of others, the morality that others live by. Their main concern is their own attitudes toward God, others, and all living things. Humility comes from seeing ourselves properly that is, truthfully, realistically, honestly, without any guile or pretense. The humble know they have gifts, abilities, strengths, and worth. They also know that all they have can be developed further (Jeff Cook).
The humble minimize or eliminate comparative living. They know and appreciate and praise others’ gifts, abilities be they few or many. They do not compete to outdo others to shine in the eyes of all. They may set as a goal to outdo the whole world in well doing but only to please the Master with whom they walk humbly. They come along side others and throw what eight they have to make them even look better than they by encouraging and edifying them. When others succeed the humble rejoice. When others fail they shed tears of sorrow in sympathy. They offer help.
How do you get it? How do you learn to run on empty? Because it does not come naturally to us, humility is a learned attitude and behavior. Jesus was humble and meek (Matthew 11:19). “I love this about you Jesus. How did you do it? Did you willpower your way into being humble?” “The will has no power, my child.” Did you hole up somewhere until it came to you?” “If you hole up it will certainly not come to you.” “Did you seek humility?” “It would not be humility if you sought it in your own strength.”
“How then?” Jesus answered: “Get a vision of my life, purify your intention and learn the means I used to do life with God. Look at my life carefully. I fasted in humility before the grand will of God. I prayed constantly. I watched to see where my Father was working and worked at the same things and in the same way he works. I took long walks alone into the wilderness as often as possible to be alone and to sort out my motives. I studied the Scriptures to learn from others. I memorized much of them so that the same Holy Spirit who gave them shaped my heart. By them I grew in wisdom. Because of them, I learned to be obedient to the end. I marinated in them day and night, taking them into heart, mind, soul, and body. I served. I worshiped. I sacrificed. I gave my all to all. I ran on empty even of my own rights to run on full (Philippians 2:1-11).” “I see. I will go and do likewise, good and faithful Servant.”
Walking with the Master is the humble way. It is the way of poverty of spirit, the condition of our hearts as we are brought into life in the kingdom of God. Amen. Lord, have mercy.
Why Am I Like That?
March 1, 2010
Why am I at times like this?
I think much more about myself when I should be more mindful of others? I cause pain to those I love. I chicken out when it comes to standing up to those who hurt others. I act stupidly but I blame others. I make a mess in my life by having unhealthy appetites. Why is speaking badly of others so at home on the tip of my tongue? Why is my soul so broken?
Dare I ask it? Why is yours? Neither you nor I are the first to struggle with answers to our experience of pride.
When asked what is wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton responded with this shortest essay ever written: “I am.” The reason he was so sure of his response is because of a realistic view of his own sin, which is first and foremost a power inhabiting our physical bodies. Long ago, one of the early Christians told us that sin “tends to make that which is cease to be.”
Jeff Cook sees sin as a parasite in need of a host, which we willingly supply. As a power sin cannot exist on its own. Just like the demons in Jesus’ parable, they take up residence in the house of a willing host.
Early in the life of the church all kinds of saints tried to understand the reality of sin and its manifestations. So they created lists of the most essential elements of sin. One author called these elements “wrong thoughts.” Others prefer to see them as challenges to our faith. Another named them deadly sins. History finally settled on naming seven of them: Pride, envy, sloth, greed, lust, wrath, and gluttony. From these spring all other sins we commit. Rape, violent acts, gossip, adultery, and murder come from anger or wrath or envy or lust. Cheating and hording come from greed. You get the idea.
Why do some call these seven sins the deadly sins? Well, cogitate with me for a moment. For example, a person who is totally possessed by pride, or his heart is strongly grasped by it, will be affected at the deepest levels of his being by his arrogance. Pride’s tentacles extend to all aspects of his life. The way he perceives everything (his whole worldview) is tainted and affected by his high view of himself and low view of others.
Do you owns shares in the common stock of pride? Are you a member of the club? Is pride in your life? We all naturally love ourselves; self-love is mandated by our Lord “love your neighbor as yourself.” But when I exaggerate this love of myself or pervert it into contempt for others, I am full of pride. Pride or arrogance is a debilitating, death-thirsty self-inflicted disease, gone on a rampage in us.
If pride is leprosy, I pronounce myself unclean. Who can deliver me from this deadening sin? Thank be to God. He owns the business of grave digging and has a monopoly on bringing the dead back to life from the dark tomb of pride.
The proud think they contribute more than they do. They believe they are more important than they really are. Because their own self blinds them, they are unable to recognize the contributions of others. They believe that if they think highly of others somehow they are thinking less of themselves.
One who knows wrote: “Pride is the cause of the most damaging fall for the soul. It induces the Christian to deny that God is his helper and to consider that he himself is the cause of his own virtues” (Evagrius of Ponticus, 345-399 AD). Another, who struggled with pride for a long time wrote: “pride made the soul desert God, to who it should cling as the source of life, and to imagine itself instead as the source of its own life” (Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD).
Jeff Cooke adds: “the more I make my life, my well-being, my enlightenment, and my success primary, the farther I step from reality. Thus the hell-bound do not travel downward; they travel inward, cocooning themselves behind a mass of vanity, personal rights, religiosity, and defensiveness” (The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes, p. 34).
The elder son in the prodigal son story is the epitomy of this kind of pride. It destroyed his ability to connect with his father, his brother, and even his own soul. Pride is the one sin that makes everyone ill and especially the one who has it.
When you find pride in yourself, or in others, you will also find much private thinking, much time spent alone because of disdain of others, and much lone ranger activity; a tenacious unwillingness to submission to authority of any kind.
Christianity in North America suffers today because millions of individual Christians have decided to go it alone without the church. Believing they are right, they do their own thing without any accountability, any submission to authority, deeming themselves captains of their own souls, masters of their own ships, with the determination to seek their own destinies apart from tradition. Pride moved into their neighborhood, and emerged as a virtue. Jesus and me and a few others and the h… with the rest of you… If an implosion of Christianity were to take place in the West, history will judge pride as the fuse that lit the downward spiral.
The antidote of pride is humility, the subject of the next article. Until next month, think through with Jesus about the damage to your soul that pride is wreaking (read Luke 15:11-32; Luke 16. There are great lessons about pride here). Walk a little with the master immersed in his words in these great texts. Look full into his wonderful face. The things of pride may grow strangely familiar.
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